Fred Ettish wants redemption... Will YAMMA give it to him?

Taken from FULL CONTACT FIGHTER.com
FRED ETTISH WANTS REDEMPTION
Will YAMMA Pit Fighting Give It To Him?
By Jim Genia

Fred Ettish stepped into the Octagon at UFC 2, and on that night in March of 1994, he did what many fighters have done in there since: he lost. Yet unlike all those who were knocked out, tapped out, given the thumbs-down by the judges or saved by the referee, Ettish suffered for years the ridicule of people who viewed him – with his white karate uniform, Shorin-Ryu black belt and rigid fighting stance – as the face of traditional martial arts in the new MMA world. It was an unfair and undeserved burden to bear for a fight just over three minutes long. But an appearance in one of YAMMA Pit Fighting’s “masters superfights” could give Ettish a much-needed shot at redemption.

It’s a shot he deserves.

What has Ettish been up to all these years? “Training, training, training, training and teaching,” says the 52-year-old. “I’m a Miletich Fighting Systems affiliate instructor. I run my own gym… I train fighters and work out with them. I try to do the best I can to stay involved with the sport – doing some refereeing… judged quite a few shows, did some commentary work. A little bit here and there, but mainly just working out, staying in shape, and trying to help other people get ahead in the sport.”

What of Ettish’s Shorin-Ryu Karate training? “I still train in that. I haven’t left anything behind – I just added a whole lot.”

“In my heart and my soul I’ve got a lot of unfinished business, a lot of unresolved things that I’ve tried to work out of my system in various ways since 1994 and UFC 2. I’ve been only limited in my success in that. I’ve come to grips with a lot of things and dealt with a lot of things, but still inside of me there’s this driving desire to prove, more to myself than anybody else, what I can do and what my true capabilities are.”

Is there anyone in particular Ettish would like to fight? “That doesn’t really matter to me,” he says. “I don’t have any axes to grind with anybody, and I don’t think that’s what the sport’s about anyway.”

Ettish has already made Meyrowitz aware that, if YAMMA Pit Fighting will have him, he’s down for a fight. But he’s not sure if Meyrowitz understood just how much a fight would mean to him. “Give me a chance,” says Ettish. “I know I’m old.
[Meyrowitz] asked me how old I was when I called him. But I will surprise him and everybody who doesn’t know me already. My conditioning is – it’s hard for me to talk about myself, but I’m in the gym everyday working out with kids in their teens and twenties. My cardio, my conditioning overall is excellent. I will go out there and fight with every ounce of heart and soul I can muster, and I guarantee that whatever happens, I’m giving you one percent of what I got. I admire the fact that [Meyrowitz] was there in the beginning, he helped create this sport that has grown and evolved into what it is today. I was there from almost the beginning, and what better way to reunite than to bring me back to the old show – and this time I’ll do it in a different way.”

Adds the UFC old schooler: “There’s something inside of me that needs to do this.”

What actually happened that was so bad? I've seen the abominations that were the early UFC's and this guy doesn't stick out in my mind as being particularly embarrassing

my understanding of the short story: in about ten minutes, fred went from an unwarmed up alternate not expected to fight and acting as pretty much a production assistant, to stepping into the octagon against a larger, warmed up and ready to go opponent.

all anybody at home ever saw was a fish out of water getting gutted.

1994 being part of the dark ages as it was, few ever found out the backstory, and fred is still (rather unfairly) used as a punchline.